Add option to easily remove default product gallery while keeping swatch functionalities. (Feature request)

[janakadombawela]

I wanted to remove the default product gallery (slider and zoom plugin: fotorama). So I tried to play around with: app\design\frontend\Mypackage\mytheme\Magento_Catalog\templates\product\view\gallery.phtml code:

<script type="text/x-magento-init"> { "[data-gallery-role=gallery-placeholder]": { "mage/gallery/gallery": { //the code } } </script>

and

app\design\frontend\Mypackage\mytheme\etc\view.xml code, but no luck. Of course removing and/or replacing gallery.phtml will remove the gallery but it will also remove the swatch functionalities.

After lot of effort and stackexchange questions I found no-way of doing this. So if there is a way to do this it would be great. Thanks.

Relevant questions:

Magento Stack Exchange

Stack Overflow

@janakadombawela did you ever find a solution for this?